You're Not THAT Important: Put Your Phone Down

Nothing says "I'm not paying attention" like texting during a meeting or a presentation, yet it happens all the time among the higher-ups when the lower folk are presenting. You get the occasional "Um-hmm" or "Uh-huh" uttered as their eyes never look up.

It's common courtesy. If I had my phone out and was furiously typing an email or texting when it's your turn to speak, you'd have a talk with my boss as soon as the meeting was over. If your job is so stressful and packed with work that you can't sit through a 10-minute presentation with your full attention on the presenter, then maybe you should tell your higher-ups that you need some assistance.

I'm presenting for your benefit, because you asked me to, because you want to see this piece before it moves on, so how about you LOOK at it. Can't that email wait?

Though something tells me you aren't even doing work-related things as your fingers tap away.

Hope you got high score.

Your Email Signature

If you have the following footer in your corporate email signature:

PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL | PROPRIETARY INFORMATION AND/OR TRADE SECRET
This e-mail, including any attachments, contains information belonging to the sender which may be Confidential and Legally Privileged. This information is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom this e-mail was sent as noted above. The unauthorized use, distribution, copying or alteration of this email is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure or action taken in reliance on the information contained in this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please advise the sender immediately by return e-mail and then delete it from your system.

I'd suggest that you take a big bold step against your paranoid corporate overlords and delete it.

It's 2016, people. This is bullshit.

My Final Assignment in CubeWorld™

They say, "Do what you love." Ha! Wouldn't we all love to be able to follow that trite advice? Whoever said that was one of the rare people already doing what they love. Most of us do well to "do what we can stand." Sorry, kids. this is the way of the world - that is if you want to eat and pay your bills.

But today I'm fairly convinced that this will be the last time I have to "do what you hate." It's awesome when a person is passionate about their work. It's sad when they are the opposite of passionate. That's what this place makes me. (Looking up the opposite of passionate now but can't find the right word.) The problem is the product we sell. Right now I am creating the third and fourth emails in a campaign where the recipients ignored the initial and follow-up emails. In other words, they have no interest in what we are offering, its reputation sullied after years of being oversold and undermaintained, but we will hammer at that list as long as we have names and live emails.

And that lack of belief in what we do here is detrimental not only to me, but to my coworkers and the company. They don't need a malcontent like me writing their emails, their posters, their come-ons and their hurry-don't-wait-time's-running-outs! I'm sure it hasn't slipped through in my writing to the customers and potential customers that I find the offerings undesirable, but it can't go unnoticed around the cubes, where every manner of corporate waste, abuse, backstabbing, politicking, senseless meetings, endless projects and underhanded weaselness is practiced. Not only practiced, but rewarded, as the ones who do those things best rise up in the ranks. These are the sorts of things I enjoy pointing out at every opportunity. Because they are so stupid. And because the people who practice them are so dead to what used to drive them that they don't even see it anymore.

I'm glad to be escaping this tomb of zombies and glad for the opportunities ahead. It's almost lunch time, my stuff is packed. I wrote a Post-it note with the username / password info for this Mac for the next person who sits here. Time to go let the boss know I'm gone. Time to go do something I love.

Make Sure You Like Your Workplace on Facebook

The Skills You Kids are Losing

A one-off, most likely. (Click for the cubicle-hanging size.)

Social Media Mission Control

Sold on the idea that they absolutely just have to be involved in Twitter, Facebook and probably Foursquare at this point, businesses still fail miserably when it comes to social media. It's not really their fault. I blame the clowns at the agencies who made them believe how important it was in the first place.

I tweeted recently about my disappointment with my insurance company - by name. (Hint: You're not really in good hands with them.) Within a day and a half, which is a long-ass time in social media, I got a reply on Twitter, though I'm sure they thought they were being quite timely. It was a very bland and corporatey response, something to the effect of, "Sorry. How can we help?" But the truth is, that's all they could say. Unfortunately, there is nothing they can actually do to help and they know that. They sent an adjuster out to the house who denied my claim, so I said they sucked on Twitter. Is their Twitter Response Team going to overrule the adjuster? Of course not. They responded just for the sake of responding, to avoid looking like an uncaring corporate entity with little regard for their customers' petty complaints. They call it Brand Reputation Management, which is a nice way of saying "Spray the Dog Shit with Lysol." It will stop stinking for a little while and maybe people will walk through the room and not notice it. Eventually it will dry up and stop stinking altogether.

I'm sure there are others out there who griped about an airline and maybe got a few free miles out of the exchange, but those cases are rare. Personally, I'd rather go back to the days (two years ago) when companies just let the complaints happen, not worried what one little tweet was going to do to their brand. One little tweet won't do shit to your brand, unless it reflects a huge and catastrophic fuck-up on your company's part, like maybe you lost a child on one of your airplanes. You got sold on "Being in a Conversation" with your customers, which is utter bullshit. You may now appear to be in a conversation, but you don't give a rat's ass anymore than you ever did. There are other insurance companies, but this one gambles that I will probably not go to the trouble of switching to another just because I have to pay for my own claim now. They're probably right, but their fake caring response had nothing to do with that. They should stop worrying about it and stop pretending to care.

Until We Meet Again

The traditional meeting business has long suffered due to sites like GoToMeeting. Or due to improvements in tools like Skype. Or tools like the telephone. Still, there are the old-school types who prefer to do business the old-fashioned way: at a hotel - in a conference room - with pitchers of ice water and carafes of bad coffee - with stale danish and cloth napkins - with a projector so you can watch a Powerpoint presentation. Don't forget the always clean rest rooms and the helpful staff. Make sure to wear your best meeting clothes. And book a flight. And get a room. And don't party too much the night before the meeting. While in the meeting, take plenty of notes on a pad of paper, because the printed handout of the Powerpoint presentation is not enough to show you are pretending to be interested. If you raise your hand to ask a question, you just might hear, "Let's discuss this more offline," because meeting in person is somehow "online." But "face time," the proponents of traditional meetings argue, "is important." I agree. That's why Skype has video.

Hyatt, borrowing a concept from Demotivators, placed this ad in today's New York Times, hoping you will hold your next meeting with them. Their tagline is "Great Happens," with the subtag "When People Get Together." It's one of those over-the-top pledges that means nothing and promises everything. It's all explained in vague detail at Hyatt Meetings, with nice pictures of the helpful staff setting the conference room table with pitchers of ice water and cloth napkins.

Cute execution. Nice skewer of the traditional corporate poster, except that it's in promotion of a traditional corporate practice. 

Previously in Motivating The Troops with Buzzwords:
There is no "U" in "Team."

This is Exactly What iGoogle Is to Me

Having all my toys in one place when I open a browser has proven a bad thing, as I am so easily distracted by the colors and sounds. Then again, if it keeps me from throwing fits and acting like a baby, softly cooing in that docile way the boss appreciates, maybe it's not so bad.

Bring me some smashed peas and carrots.

Spin Your Wheels

Sometimes, you just have to think of it as a job.


The client has a very cumbersome and limiting name. Trouble is, they've been known by this mouthful of a name since 1945. At first, I suggested a simple shortening of the current name, keeping the main element that people know them by. A change was necessary, I argued, but a drastic change would likely alienate a large portion of their base. (Sorry, I'm being vague by necessity.) We were asked to come up with some alternatives. We submitted many, as did a naming/branding company that was paid tens of thousands of dollars. Naturally, the client wanted to see logos and taglines. Same deal. At least a hundred logos. At least 300 tags for the various name possibilities. They kept saying, "Use this word in the tagline. Use this element in the logo. No, give me a synonym for that word. I want to see this in another color."

Last night they held a board meeting in which the final few names would be narrowed down to a winner. After eight months and countless man hours, they elected to shorten their old name.

A colossal waste of time, or just how it works as people justify their bloated salaries and unnecessary positions? Maybe the process was required to show them that they already have an established brand.

Now that a name has been finalized, I expect to be involved in at least 30 meetings where we will listen to a dozen groups of unqualified people assess logos and taglines as they toss around the word "branding" as if they knew what it meant. I'm so looking forward to this.

A Paradise of Plenty Where Nobody Lacks

All flying around with our own jetpacks.

OK, maybe not.

For The Big

YouTubin' At Work

Terry Gilliam predicted it in 1985 in this scene from "Brazil," a movie you should seek out if you haven't seen it.

Notes on a Meeting - #10

As long as you are writing during a meeting, your colleagues assume you are paying attention. Unfortunately, sometimes what they're saying isn't really worth listening to. That's when you doodle.

The following fictitious character in no way represents anyone I work with, or anyone who was in a recent meeting, or anyone I've ever worked with. Or anyone you work with, or know. Or whom you have ever known. Any semblance of the following fictitious character to any person, either living or dead, is purely coincidental and is completely in the imagination of the person who thinks it's them.



Previously in Notes on a Meeting

The Boss Wants Your Goals

And he will have a fancy name for them, like "Aspirational Benchmarks." And he will meet with you again later in the year to see how you're doing. And you will say, "I think I've hit all my goals." And he will say, "You're doing better in areas A and B, but you need improvement in area C." And you will fantasize about weighing him down with bricks and tossing him in a river. You might even draw a cartoon of that fantasy. Try not to post that cartoon on your cube wall.

Click for the Bigness, Print it, Post it on your Cube Wall.

Notes on a Meeting—#8

Look, if you don't need glasses, why wear them? Someone in Amsterdam or Stuttgart or Copenhagen started this trend, and now it is rampant in agencies worldwide. You don't look more creative with these things. You just look like you're from Amsterdam or Stuttgart or Copenhagen.

From this morning's production meeting.

Previously in Notes on a Meeting.

What? Was I Supposed to Lie?

With Life-Like Violence

You know a company is going through tough times not just by the layoffs, but by the inattention to building and facilities maintenance.

The Galaga machine down in the employee lounge has had a faulty power supply for over a month and no one has been out to fix it. Having conquered that game and owning all high scores, I was forced to turn my attention to Tekken Tag. Today I beat the final level.

I believe my work here is done.

Notes on a Meeting #8 - Fake It

A couple more characters for the comic strip. These are "The Fakers." They're not exclusive to office environments. I'm sure you know a few. But really, this type is easier to deal with than the constantly-down "Moper," forever depressing everyone with sad tales of real life trouble. In our superficial culture, when we ask, "How's it going?" we don't really want to hear anything besides, "Fine." It's a greeting, not an invitation to unload.
Follow the trail of "Notes on a Meeting."

Another Ugly Day of Cardboard Boxes and Tears

This time it's the IT department getting whittled down to next-to-nothing, with lots of long faces and huddles of survivors in the corridors of CubeWorld^TM, wondering how they escaped this round and whispering about when their turn before the Executioners of HR is coming.

On the bright side, when Obama is President, there will be lots and lots of people working in construction and the Peace Corps and National Service, building roads and bridges, monorails and moving sidewalks, teaching children to love their country while we all work together, making a beautiful world where rainbows shine and unicorns sing under a cloudless sky. That sure will be nice.

Dear HR

I've about exhausted the "Old Man and His Platoon of Butt-Kissers" comic. So here's a new one.

Cell-Phone Photography Review

Since I know you've been waiting for more in my sporadic series featuring my stunning and thoughtful photographic studies of life in CubeWorld^TM , I present the latest print. It's called "Stay Hungry - Applesauce and Chopsticks #23."

From Cell Phone Photography Review Quarterly comes this assessment:

Jetpacks again defies reason, sense and taste by giving us another of his grainy, stupid cell-phone images. As if we didn't notice the "irony" of putting chopsticks in applesauce, the "photographer" has to title this "piece" to help us "get it." As for composition, lighting and texture, why even bother? When your subject matter is so inane, it's hard to care about the thing any further. Shite. Crap. Poop.

Hmmm. Jealous much, CPPRQ?